


The Cliffs of Delphi: "Father"

by GreyLiliy



Series: The Cliffs Of Delphi [12]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyLiliy/pseuds/GreyLiliy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarn’s paternal side comes out, at the expense of Pharma’s furniture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cliffs of Delphi: "Father"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm drowning in this Alternate Universe and loving every second. <3

Pharma’s desk was broken in half.

Split down the middle, with shards of the wood scattered about the floor and jutting out from the damaged edges like razors. Pharma huddled in the corner of the room, hands over his head and knees drawn in tight to his chest. He stared, fixated on the once useful piece of furniture, destroyed in a single strike. It rather matched the upturned couch, the broken chair and the snapped hinges of his office door.

Tarn roared, a literal, guttural yell as he grabbed the side of the liquor cabinet with two hands and threw it from the wall. Glass from the doors and the bottles inside shattered in a symphony of broken edges, and Pharma flinched.

The monster breathed heavily, stopped from his rampage for the first time in twenty minutes since he broke his way into Pharma’s office. Pharma wrinkled his nose at the smell of his liquors and booze mixing together in the ruined carpet. The stench filled the room, and Tarn rubbed a hand down his face, pausing to rub the corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Pharma dared to look in his direction and bit his lip: Tarn wasn’t wearing his make-up.

The monster never left his house without his face.

Tarn’s scars and burns twisted as his emotions danced across his face from anger, to tired frowning. He turned and picked up a bottle from the ground, the top broken off but most of the liquid still pooled in the bottom half of the glass. Tarn lifted the back of the couch, and set the mangled piece of furniture back upright. The cushion was left on the floor, but it didn’t stop him from collapsing in the seat, and taking a swig from the least-sharp corner of the broken whisky bottle.

Pharma stayed where he was in the corner, counting down the seconds for when Tarn would see fit to leave.

"None of that was sentimental was it?"

"What?" Pharma asked, holding up his arm just a bit to watch Tarn carefully. The man swished the booze around in his glass and stared at the floor.

Tarn waved a hand in the general direction of the destruction. “The furniture. It wasn’t a family heirloom or something, right?”

Pharma slowly shook his head. “No, just something I picked up cheap off of friends and family.”

"Good," Tarn sighed. He threw back the last of the liquid in the bottle and tossed it on the floor with the rest. "Then I won’t bother having any of it fixed, but I will replace it. All new, maybe something with hand carvings and decorations. Sunstreaker has a nice set out you might like, perhaps I’ll pick that up."

Pharma blinked, and dropped his hands down. Tarn continued to sit, shoulders slumped and head down—exhausted. He moved to lean back in the cushion-less couch, but otherwise did not move. Pharma took to his feet, and nudged a bottle with the edge of his foot.

"Did my furniture do something to offend you?" Pharma asked, sensing the worst of the rampage long gone. "Or was it something I did?"

"You?" Tarn chuckled, rubbing the edge of his cheek. His fingers dug into a pit left by a scar, and he traced it down to the edge of his lip. "Nothing, you did nothing. This wasn’t about you."

"Not about me?" Pharma asked, crossing his arms. He kicked the side of his over-turned liquor cabinet. "Then why did you feel the need to tear through my office like a blasted thunderstorm?"

"It was your furniture, or Kaon," Tarn sighed. He rubbed his face and licked the side of his lips. "I would have wrecked my own room, but then he would have heard it. Boy’s got better hearing than his mutt."

Pharma dropped his arms at his side, and took a seat on the back of the liquor cabinet. He reached down and pulled up a bottle that still had a bit of bourbon in the bottom. “Kaon?”

"Yes," Tarn said.

Pharma took a swig out of the bottle. “I thought you sent him away to school? He was boarding there or something, wasn’t he?”

"He came home for the holiday break."

"And what exactly did he do, that sent you into a rage?" Pharma asked, taking a second drink. He pointed a finger at Tarn, and spun it in a circle. "For goodness sake, you let that child get away with murder most of the time. He’s your perfect little angel. What could he possibly have done?"

"He found over twenty other students to sleep with at school," Tarn said, voice oddly even through his gritted teeth. "Claimed he ‘finally got enough experience, so that he wouldn’t be a disappointment to me if I cared to change my mind.’ He may have also gone into the details of a few new tricks he’d learned."

Pharma took another sip from the bottle, and bit his lip.

"After the third thing he listed, that had something to do with his tongue which is a thought that will never leave my mind, I saw red and had to get out of the house before I strangled him," Tarn continued. "I left mid sentence and I can still hear his shouting as I slammed the door behind me and made for the front door without so much as stopping to change. I can’t believe Kaon would defile himself that way. I raised him better than that—"

Pharma snorted, and his shoulders shook in tiny tremors as he bit his lip even harder to keep the sound from escaping.

"If you laugh, I’m breaking both of your arms."

"No, no," Pharma said, covering his grin quickly with his hand. He bit the edge and counted to ten to control himself. If his furniture was any indication, Tarn meant it this time—and it’s not like it would be the first time Tarn had snapped a limb. "Wouldn’t dream of it."

Tarn gripped his hands into fists and full on pouted. Pharma was proud of his self control. Tarn huffed, “It’s not funny.”

"It is a little bit," Pharma said, pinching his fingers together. "All considered."

"Alright, so I may not have set the best example when it comes to chastity," Tarn growled in response. He slammed his fist down on the couch chair. "But this isn’t about him fooling around! It’s about his motives!"

"You really ought to just sleep with him," Pharma mumbled into his hand. He slumped over and leaned on his knees. "Be your regular rough self, he’ll be traumatized, and he’ll never bring it up again. Problem solved."

"I can’t," Tarn said, loosening his fist. "He’s nearing twenty, and whenever I look at him all I see is that little eight year old brat I pulled out of the gutter covered in soot. I used to tuck him in at night and wash his hair. Thinking about him sexually in any fashion turns my stomach, and considering I first picked him up to go downstairs is saying something!"

Pharma glanced at Tarn. “I didn’t know that.”

"Know what?"

"That you picked Kaon up to be a little trinket for your basement," Pharma muttered into the side of his hand. "I always figured he was a random charity case. Like those artists you keep pouring money into."

"He started as one, and turned into the other," Tarn said. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the arm rest, and pulled a foot back across the floor. "But what’s done is done, and I have no idea how it ever got to this point. I’ve been nothing but a father to him since the moment he stepped foot in my home. How could he ever come to think of me that way?"

"Have you ever told him that he’s your son?" Pharma asked. Tarn lifted an eyebrow at him, stretching the slick and smooth skin between the jagged edges. "I ask out of curiosity. He calls you by your name, and though you do spoil him rotten with anything that he wants, I figured he’d call you some form of ‘Father’ if that was the case."

"I always figured it was understood," Tarn said, looking at the wall. "I didn’t think I needed to spell it out when I was reading him bedtime stories or taking him to the Candy Store on his birthday."

"Apparently not," Pharma said. He slapped his knee once and stood. Pharma stepped over a bit of debris from what was once a very nice coffee table, and sat next to Tarn on the couch. He pat the edge of Tarn’s knee and leaned on the larger man. "It’ll pass, Tarn. I’m sure one of those many suitors of his will get serious, and he’ll be plenty distracted from wanting to sleep with you."

"I’m not sure if that’s better or worse," Tarn said, cracking a tiny smile. "Then I’ll want to hurt him, and have an extra body to hide."  
  
Pharma laughed, and kicked his feet up to rest on the table pieces. “Now that sounds like a father.”


End file.
